🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <JIM.90Aug8122529@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes:

   This is unrealistic and wholly impractical.
			Not even mostly impractical?  :-)

	[ good critique of degenerate scenario deleted ]

   whoever connected directly to them. At present, that would mean 10
   sites getting annual news/mail bills of 25,000 pounds or so. Who'd
   want to pay that kind of money? How many sites would want to have a
   direct connection to UKC if that was what it would cost them? Of

And here you hit the nail squarely on the foot.  That is precisely the problem 
I was trying to get around in my proposal. The cost @ ukc would be inversely 
proportional to the number of sites taking a direct subscription.  When I made
the suggestion what I was thinking of was more along the lines of most big
(academic/commercial) sites keeping their subscriptions, whilst allowing small
sites (personal and startups) to organise co-operative sharing. Maybe there 
could be another class of subscribtion for ukc- sites allowed to redistribute
news to non ukc-sites.  This could tend towards the formation of a more 
flexible backbone  (in invertibrated commas). This more flexible structure
be 
   course, as direct UKC feeds drop off, the costs for the remaining
   feeds increase, the network topology deteriorates and the connectivity
   is diminished.

Billing topology need not reflect physical topology. An upstream site could 
insist that all it's clients obtained ukc subscriptions- a situation 
identical to the present. What I was trying to get across was a  more 
gradualist situation than the case you chose. 

The ultimate aim of UKNET is to feed the largest number of sites for the least
of money and hassle.  Thus far the net done brilliant- but  the present 
structure is not set up to deal with the small site.  After all,
flat rate charges   haven't been to popular in Strathclyde to date, 
have they? :-)

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